Digital opportunities: innovative ICT
solutions for youth employment and
entrepreneurship
Digital Strategies for Development Summit 2015
Cebu City, the Philippines
22 September 2015
Susan Schorr
Head, Special Initiatives Division
ITU, Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT)
Youth unemployment – a global and regional challenge
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•
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74 MILLION YOUTH ARE UNEMPLOYED GLOBALLY WITH 621 MILLION NEETs
Youth: 17% of the world’s population and 40% of the world’s unemployed (ILO, 2013)
YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE ARAB REGION IS HIGHEST IN THE WORLD
Job listings
Jobs
enabled by
the digital
world
Digital
Opportunities
Most jobs
require digital
literacy
Microwork
Crowdsourcing
http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Pages/Reports.aspx
Online Job Matching Services
ICTs are creating jobs for youth
ICTs are transforming old professions…
5
The EU has a growing deficit of ICT professional skills, forecast to reach 900,000 by 2020.
Despite the strong positive evolution
in
the
employment
of
ICT
professionals in the EU over the past
decade, the employment potential of
ICT is underexploited. Evidence shows
that there is a growing gap emerging
between the demand and supply of
ICT specialists in Europe. This gap has
been projected could reach 900 000 by
2020 if not addressed.
It is the purpose of the Commission's
Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs
initiative to address this issue of
lacking ICT professional skills.
Currently the largest ICT professional
skills gap is to be found in Germany.
However, latest forecasts suggest that
over the period up to 2020 the ICT
professionals skills gaps will be
severely aggravated in the UK and
Italy in particular; largely due to the
insufficient
production
of
ICT
graduates to keep up with strongly
increasing
demand
for
ICT
professionals in these countries.
Vacancies for ICT professionals in the EU – main forecast 2012-2020
1000
900
Other 15
800
ES
PL
700
AT
FI
600
DK
BE
500
NL
400
SE
FR
300
IT
DE
200
UK
100
0
2012
2015
2020
Source: Empirica model forecast
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Digital Agenda Scoreboard 2014 – Digital Inclusion and Skills
The top 25 professional skills that recruiters searched for on
LinkedIn in 2014
7
Coding boot camps
Action for Policy Makers
Digital skills in
school curriculum
Collaborative
innovation spaces
Skills development
for out-of-school
youth
Text-to-speech
engines in local
languages
Alternative
certification
models
App contests and
competitions
Government
procurement from
young
entrepreneurs
9
Thank You!
susan.schorr@itu.int